An insight on what is at stake for secular India

As we, Indians, welcomed the beginning of a new era 2020 (the era which was supposed to bring the promised 'acha din'), it would be interesting to investigate the contemporary political discourse that pervades the country. Any impartial political observant committed to the democratic secular ethos of the Constitution of India would be alarmed at the way all the ideals that make up our country such as democracy, secularism, etc are under threat and all the political establishments that were built by Nehruvian era have been irrecoverably destroyed. Judiciary, Rule of Law, and every such institutions are being on the verge of complete annihilation.

This, coupled with the continuous electoral victories of the ruling party, would prompt us to ask this crucial question: Is India turned out to be a completely hopeless theocratic state with hundred per cent disregard for civil rights?

The answer is not so simple as one may imagine. Just look at the way AAP has managed to win the election. We would be able to appreciate the fact that our voters were not mesmerised by the fundamentalist bombardment of propaganda that pervaded the media. When Kejriwal brought out the "good governance"(acha din) as promised by him, people chose him.

So, is it so easy to convince the voters and bring back the secular forces to power? Before proceeding to answer either a 'yes' or a 'no', we need to know what were/are the problems of the dominant democratic secular political party of India, INC (Indian National Congress): dynasty, corruption, incompetency, identity politics? It invites a detailed analysis. 

(Will continue...)

yatra naryastu pujyante ramante tatra devata

yatra naryastu pujyante
ramante tatra Devata,
yatraitaastu na pujyante
sarvaastatrafalaah kriyaah

Where women are honored, divinity rejoices, and where women are dishonored, all action no matter how noble remain unfruitful. (Manusmruthi)

എവിടെ സ്ത്രീകൾ പൂജിക്കപ്പെടുന്നുവോ, അവിടെ ദേവതമാർ രമിക്കുന്നു. എവിടെ സ്ത്രീകൾ അപമാനിക്കപ്പെടുന്നുവോ, എല്ലാ കർമ്മങ്ങളും, എത്ര ശ്രേഷ്ഠവുമാവട്ടെ, നിഷ്ഫലമാവുന്നു.

"കുറച്ചു നേരം മിണ്ടാതെ റിക്ഷ ചവിട്ടിയ അയാൾ പെട്ടെന്ന് അടുത്ത ചോദ്യമെറിഞ്ഞു: 'നിങ്ങൾക്ക് സ്ത്രീകളെ കിട്ടണമെന്ന് അത്ര നിർബന്ധമാണോ സാബ്?'

ഏതോ ഒരാശ്രമത്തിലെ കള്ളകളികളിലേക്കുള്ള വാതിൽ തുറന്ന് കിട്ടാൻ പോകുകയാണോ? ഞങ്ങൾ പരസ്പരം നോക്കി. ഞാൻ പറഞ്ഞു: 'അതെ. കിട്ടിയാൽ നന്നായിരുന്നു.'

'എങ്കിൽ നിങ്ങൾ എന്റെ വീട്ടിലേക്കു വരൂ. എന്റെ ഭാര്യയെ നിങ്ങൾക്ക് ഉപയോഗിക്കാം. 200 രൂപ തന്നാൽ മതി.'

ഞങ്ങൾ തരിച്ചിരുന്നുപോയി." (വിശുദ്ധ പാപങ്ങളുടെ ഇന്ത്യ, അരുൺ എഴുത്തച്ചൻ)



There is nothing more to add, or no need to paraphrase it. In India, women are considered as a burden, and people make use of religion as an excuse to get rid of female members of their family. And we are speaking of equality, and rights to such people. We are speaking of gender discrimination, we are speaking of women entry in temples such as Sabarimala, we are speaking of women reservation in Parliament and Legislative Assemblies. We are speaking of all these when women are sold off to brothel houses in their early childhood itself. We are speaking of women empowerment when those who are supposed to be 'holy' are the perpetuators of the same exploitation. No doubt, the same Manu who speaks of women in a reverential way also said 'na: sthree svathanthryamarhati:' Without correcting this contradiction, we cannot save India.

Peshawar Attack- A Lesson to Learn

The attack on little kids and teachers unleashed in Peshawar last day should be a lesson to the nations all over the world. This shows that terrorists, whatever be the aims and objectives they proclaim, are just ‘terrorists’, unleashing terror. Religion, or nation, or freedom struggle are not their concerns. They are just blinded by their beliefs and can’t see the light of truth. Any nation which shows sympathy towards them should understand this basic idea. Pakistan over the years supported these jihadists in many ways to destroy countries like India. Even when it is publicly known that Pakistan is the center of conspiracy against 26/11 attacks, they didn’t do anything to help India. Now, it is their turn. Even now if they are planning to take mild steps against the terrorists, it will ultimately destroy the country.

Indians also should learn a lesson. Though we may have a lot to criticize the founding fathers of the nation and the leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, it is their foresightedness that helped us. India is secular and should remain as a secular nation. Theocratic countries like Pakistan will ultimately the centers of chaos.


Therefore, any attempt to make India a religious state, Rama Rajya (not Gandhian concept, but the Sangh Parivar idea) should be rejected.


Photo courtesy: Hindustan Times

Reinvent the ideology- the only option before Congress

Indian National Congress is the oldest political party in India. During the time of British colonial rule, the party gained control by invoking the nationalist sentiments of the people. The leaders of the party knew that in a multi-cultural society like India, secular ideals would be better to get the support of the people. Thus, by combining the ideals of nationalism and secular concepts, INC became an unquestionable power. Any other economic ideology other than that of socialism would have been inappropriate in a country where the social division of haves and have-nots is a social reality. The Congress party under the leadership of Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru adopted socialist policy in order to decrease the gap between rich and the poor. In other words, the ideological positioning of the party “nationalism+ secularism+ socialism” is what helps Nehru remain as an unquestionable power centre in the country.

In short, in order to understand the real depth of the problems of Congress party in the contemporary India, an understanding of history will be useful. There are political observers who say that it is because of the dynastic rule within the party that led to the destruction of the party, whereas some others point out the corruption cases leveled against the leaders of the UPA govt. I would say these are just simplification of the issue.

Nationalist sentiments were something which helped grow the Congress party, but the party failed to instill the same sentiments among the youth in the present era. In the place of Congress, BJP and RSS invoked the same sentiments. They have used the ideas and writings of the earlier national leaders such as Bal Gangadhara Tilak. This helped them gain control.

The Janata Parivar and the Leftist parties became powerful parties as they have concentrated on secularist and socialist ideas. When Congress failed to support the minorities and Dalits, they lost their support base.

In short, the reason behind the failure is because of their lack of ideological stand point. BJP proved to be a better right wing, nationalist political party and the regional parties raise the slogan of secularism louder than the Congress. So, if Congress wants to regain their lost ground, they need to invent some catchy slogans and ideology.

Standing Protest versus Kiss of Love

Kerala is a land of many interesting things: drinking alcohol is not a crime, but coco cola is; having more than one wife is acceptable, but going out with your wife in the park or town will certainly invite questionings from ‘morality police’ and so on. I will tell you one more example which will show this contradictory nature of Kerala society.

As the after effect of the failure of the promises which the Kerala Govt. under A.K. Antony gave to the adivasis of the state during the time of Muthanga riot in 2003, the adivasis in Kerala recently proclaimed ‘standing protest’ in front of Kerala Secretariat in 2014 under Adivasi Gothra Maha Sabha. Though the agitation started months ago, none of the main stream political parties, or media persons gave much attention to the issue. They have been standing in front of the Kerala Secretariat or Kerala conscience, but nobody took notice.

At the same time, another public protest has stolen the hearts and minds of the people of Kerala. A group of youngsters in the Facebook have decided to conduct a campaign against moral policing (enforcing a code of conduct through force) in the state. They have decided to conduct ‘Kiss of Love’ protest, kissing in pubic as a reaction. Maybe because of its sexist nature, it got wide coverage. It ultimately attracted public attention and reaction.
Why certain struggles manage to capture the attention of the people whereas some fail? You may say that there are no specific reasons, but simple people support causes which they have to face in their day to day life. But this would be a simplification. The reason for a lack of public interest in the adivasi strike is because Kerala is still under the hegemonic power of the upper caste people. For most of the people in Kerala, tribal people are a threat: merely eating up govt. money without much benefit to the wider community. They feel that undue support is given by the authorities to them, which in other words should have been gone to the public. Whereas the condition of adivasis in Kerala is pathetic. Child death is common (not just in Attappadi), adivasi women are facing sexual harassment from men, and many other atrocities are being faced by them. The general reaction to their problems is that of indifference. In my point of view, they should conduct strikes against this attitude of the people.

‘Kiss of Love’ became a huge success in Kerala not because of public sympathy towards the cause. In order to understand the reasons behind the masses who gathered in the protest venue, we need to understand the nature of Malayalis: they are voyeurs, always stare at women without any decency (that is why in Indian English we have a new word “Eve-teasing”). Those who gathered in the venue were interested in the prospect of watching an ‘event’, which they don’t want to miss. They took photographs, shared it in their FB pages and supported publicly (but didn’t take part in it).

The moral of the story is this (sorry, we need to ban all entries of words beginning with ‘moral’ from the dictionary): we need to conduct a serious social surgery to the society, otherwise the genuine problems of the people will be sidelined.